Tim McGraw &gt;

Tim McGraw says he tries to be subtle when he sings — when he’s in the studio recording vocals, he keeps it dark to help him imagine he’s on a bar stool just talking to somebody.

After 20 years at the pinnacle of country music stardom — record sales topping 40 million, 32 No. 1 singles and 40 major music industry awards, including three Grammys — Tim McGraw is ready for a fresh start.

With the release of his 12th album, “Two Lanes of Freedom,” McGraw has shed his old record label, his hard-partying ways and 40 pounds. Fit, sober and coming off a 10-week stint in Las Vegas performing with his super-successful wife, Faith Hill, McGraw is pulling his truck (yeah) into the Sleep Train Amphitheatre on Friday as part of a 38-stop tour.

“I feel like I am in the prime of my career, and there is so much more ahead of me,” McGraw told People magazine in a recent cover story that generated as much Internet buzz for the photos of his rock-solid abs as it did for his frank revelations about his alcoholism.

Enhancing his mass-appeal megastardom, McGraw has pushed himself where few Nashville stars would dare go, whether it’s recording a duet with rapper Nelly or acting on the big screen opposite such A-listers as Sandra Bullock, in her Oscar-winning turn in “The Blind Side,” or Gwyneth Paltrow in “Country Strong.”

Opening up for him in Chula Vista is one of Nashville’s brightest rising stars, singer-songwriter Brantley Gilbert, and the duo Love and Theft.

Here are five nuggets on the life and music of this multifaceted performer.

1. You couldn’t make up the story of his paternity. McGraw grew up as Timmy Smith, thinking his dad was a man named Horace Smith. When he was 11, McGraw was digging around in his mom’s closet for Christmas presents when he came across his birth certificate. It named the late Mets/Phillies pitching great Tug McGraw as his biological father. Little Timmy knew who he was — he already had Tug McGraw’s baseball card hanging on his bedroom wall.

2. McGraw’s ties to Taylor Swift go deep. Swift made an early name for herself with her first single, “Tim McGraw,” and McGraw and Hill’s young daughters begged to have Swift appear as McGraw’s opening act (she did). The two stars now appear on the same label, Big Machine Records, and Swift joins McGraw on his current hit, “Highway Don’t Care,” which also features masterful guitar work from Keith Urban.

3. He said he has never watched ABC’s “Nashville.” That despite the fact that the lead character of Rayna Jaymes — an aging country superstar struggling to retain relevancy — is supposedly loosely based on Faith Hill. Undermining Jaymes’ country queen supremacy is young, blond and overproduced Juliette Barnes, who is said to be very loosely based on Taylor Swift.